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Yesterday, Today and, Tomorrow: Movie Review

“Yesterday, Today and, Tomorrow” is your typical Filipino drama with feuding family members, rich patriarchs with multiples families, unexpected deaths, and some sort of romantic love story. Because it’s the typical drama, the story line is predictable. We knew what would happen even before they happened. Put simply, this is a soap opera story squeezed into a 2 hour movie. However, don’t expect the usual straight forward happy ending - which is probably one of the best things about this film. It actually tries to veer away from the fairy tale ending Filipinos are used to.
The story revolves around the Montes family and the conflicts that arise amongst the members after a devastating earthquake. Ronaldo Valdez plays the patriarch with 2 wives. He has 3 children – Maricel Soriano, Jericho Rosales, and Solenn Heussaff. Maricel’s character is the eldest among his children and the president of the family owned television network. She is separated from her husband who is played by Gabby Concepcion. Jericho Rosales, the only son, is a workaholic who doesn’t spend enough time with his wife, Lovi Poe, and their son. Lovi Poe, aside from being Jericho’s wife, is a former lead singer in a band before she was forced to quit because of her marriage. Solenn is the only child with the 2nd wife. She looks up to her older sister, Maricel’s character, who treats her unfairly. Dennis Trillo takes on the role of a personal trainer who later on becomes a source of conflict between Agot’s and Solenn’s characters. The 1st part of the movie focuses on a summary of the characters’ pasts. All the conflicts come out after a devastating earthquake hits Manila and forces each of the family members into heartbreaking and unfortunate situations.

In fairness to the writers, all the characters were given enough of a story such that no one can be considered as an insignificant part of this ensemble movie. On the other hand, too many characters might be the cause of a lack of character development. For example, Jericho Rosales’ character, is a workaholic but apart from possibly being pressured by his older sister, We don’t understand where his work-focused personality comes from. Lovi’s character who rebels against her husband’s wishes is also another under-developed character, in my opinion. By the end of the movie, we still couldn’t figure out her reasons for rebelling and why she sometimes treated her son indifferently.

On the acting front, we have to say that Maricel Soriano is the star of this movie. She proves yet again why she is considered to be one of the best actresses in the country. The movie is heavy drama thus, there are numerous crying scenes but the most memorable and effective ones were delivered by Maricel. Her brilliance as an actress is evident in how she is able to make viewers feel empathy because you just feel her pain. Gabby and Agot are also 2 other veterans who have already proven their acting prowess and as expected did well. For the younger casts, they did fairly good and there were some notable scenes from them. Lovi Poe was ok but there was no sincerity in her acting in several scenes. As a viewer, I didn’t feel as if she was the character. Probably, the best acted scene from Lovi would be towards the end of the movie when she takes drastic action after her problems multiply. Carla Abellana did fine as well and her best scene was her confrontation with Maricel’s character.

The film’s moral lesson is a good one – learn from the past, live in the present, and hope for the future. Overall though, it could have been executed better -c haracter development, acting, storyline and pretty much everything else. If you’re expecting to watch an excellent movie, you’ll be disappointed. The movie is fine but it isn’t a must-watch and nothing to rave about.

Rating: 2 reels

Why you should watch it:
- Maricel Soriano and the other veteran actors prove their acting prowesses once more
- a not-so-tyoical ending is a refresher

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- character development was left out
- an ensemble cast was just unnecessary, really.
- overall story was still predictable even with the unconventional end